YOGA INC - THE NEW MONEY MACHINE
By Ruma Dubey
“Breathe in, breathe out”
“Hold the position for twenty breaths”
“Reeeeellllaxxxxx”
Surely, if you are a yoga proponent, you are bound to have heard these words in your class; these are like the new mantra’s of our modern stressful world.
And as stress increases, ancient sciences have started coming back to our rescue. Like Yoga and Ayurveda. These two have been in existence as long as mankind has been. We Indians would have buried these precious knowledge’s unless the Western world had not given it the kind of recognition that it has today. Ironic but that is the truth of today – yoga is a big deal today only because the western world practices it, recognized it as a panacea for most ills of contemporary world. Otherwise the youth of today would have shunned it, thought it was way too demeaning for them to be even heard, forget seen, doing yoga.
Today, yoga is hep, cool. And the UN recognition on 21st June as the International Yoga day, surely was a feather in our cap. One speech by the PM and the UN granted the recognition; you think this could have happened 20-25 years ago when yoga was just about being recognized in the West? Irrespective of what else Modi does during his tenure, he will surely be remembered for this great deed.
And that brings us to the moot point – as such yoga had turned into a multi million dollar business center and now after 21st June, it might as well turn out to be the next big sunrise industry of India.
Baba Ramdev, who was on the dias with the PM, would surely rake in the maximum moolah; no doubts this was a great PR opportunity for him. As such, his organization, Patanjali, is said to have made over Rs.2000 crore in FY15 and the baba is actually talking about taking on Hindustan Unilever! He is planning to open some 10,000 centers in Haryana alone. This is the kind of money, one organization, that too concentrated mainly in one part of the country is talking about. Can you imagine the opportunity which lay all over India?
This 21st June itself had become an ad blitzkrieg. Lenovo selling Yoga laptops, Spicejet’s in the air yoga session, various yoga packages being offered by umpteen number of yoga institutes; it went on and on. And that shows that by the time we hit the second 21st June, the India yoga industry would have become huge.
Earlier yoga was taught free and later, a very nominal fee was charged. Today, people become instructors with even less than 1 year of experience and they charge exorbitant amounts – anywhere from Rs.2500 per session to even as high as Rs.10,000. If the instructor has taught a film star, you can be assured, your pocket and bank balance will be ripped apart.
Apart from institutes making money, the merchandise makers associated with yoga are happy – yoga mats, yoga attire, and they will come up with new things – yoga bag, yoga water bottle and so on. This is also another huge business opportunity.
What is scary is that yoga institutes which own many franchisees and branches could see PE funds coming in. And that makes these yoga institutes into profit centers. Then this leads to desecration; like the doctor business where volumes matter, patients no longer count.
Thus too much of commercialization will damage Yoga and its very meaning. If growth happens keeping the core values of yoga intact, then that’s welcome. But making it into a consumer product, changing the complete texture of the practice with hot/cold yoga, yoga on the boat, yoga with your dog; all these will damage the very core which the sage Patanjali taught us. Lets not make yoga into a business commodity as the ancient rishis never sold yoga for a price. It would be sad to see ashrams becoming MNCs, losing its core values. Too much commercialization of yoga will damage yoga and what it stands for.
So while we welcome this fantastic move by Modi, reclaiming yoga back as a product of India, one shudders to think what opportunists will do it. Well, Ayurveda has survived so yoga might also. Maybe Modi now needs to highlight about conducting more research on yoga and encourage full fledged yoga courses for graduation; yoga colleges. Now that would be a step in the right direction.
“Now you can get into the shavaasana.”